


A Horror of Emptiness

by babel



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-13
Updated: 2011-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babel/pseuds/babel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chandra and Sylar work to improve Sylar's ability.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Horror of Emptiness

Chandra stands by the window, watching the lazy Sunday traffic below his flat. He can feel the chill of morning emanating from the glass. The heater is broken again, and he is sure he will never adjust to this climate.

He hasn't slept. He has no interest in sleep anymore.

With a deep sigh, he pushes himself away from the window and goes to the hunched young man, glaring at the statue of an elephant that is slowly scratching the coffee table's wood finish. Chandra is no longer worried that it will fly across the room, at least.

“Gabriel... _Gabriel_.” Then, he rests a hand on his shoulder. “Sylar.”

Sylar looks up at Chandra. A trickle of blood runs down from his nostril and hangs on his lip. Chandra wipes it away with a handkerchief. “You are working too hard.”

“I know I can do more than just move things across the table.”

“I'm sure that you can, but there is no need to hurt yourself.” Chandra brushes a strand of Sylar's hair off of his forehead. “You are very important. There is no need to rush.”

Sylar sets his jaw, his eyes going a little out of focus.

Chandra knows by now the man's constant fear of letting him down. It's a useful fear.

“You will practice only an hour at a time from now on, with an hour break between. Do you understand?”

Sylar's eyes snap back into focus. “Okay, Professor.”

“Good boy.” He pats Sylar's shoulder. “Now, let's have some breakfast.”

__________

Chandra hasn't clocked any hours in his taxi for some time. The electricity will be off for good soon.

“You've done very well today,” he says, gently squeezing Sylar's shoulder. He has to keep an eye on him, or Sylar will, of all things, lose track of time. “After you have taken your break, I would like to work on precision. With your intelligence, I think you may be capable of some very detailed work.”

Sylar blinks up at Chandra. His pupils are slightly dilated, and he smiles at the compliment. He pushes his chair out and stands, going over to the terrarium. He likes to watch the lizard during his breaks.

"Chandra?"

"Hm?" Chandra follows him, standing by his side. Sylar is tall, but he always hunches. Chandra touches his back lightly to remind him to stand straight.

Of course, Sylar does. "You named it after your son, right?" He runs his fingertip slightly over the lizard's crest. "Mohinder."

"Yes, that's right."

Sylar looks at him, his eyes with an unsettling intensity. "Why did you leave him behind?"

Chandra raises an eyebrow. "I don't know what you mean."

"Your son. You left him in India, right? You said there were arguments."

"What are you getting at, Gabriel?"

Sylar cringes at the name. Chandra uses it when he disapproves of something he's done. "Y-you don't have a perfect relationship with him, but... you named your lizard after him. Does that mean you miss him? Even though, y'know, he wouldn't know that you do. Maybe you do miss him, and he'd never know it."

Chandra frowns down at the lizard. Sylar fidgets with the edges of his sleeves.

"I'm sorry, Professor," Sylar says, finally.

"It's quite all right." Chandra smiles at him and rubs his arm affectionately. "You are probably not wrong."

Sylar leans slightly into his touch. He's been doing that more often lately. "I'm sure he knows."

"Let's get back to work," Chandra says. "It hasn't been an hour, but this exercise shouldn't be too taxing for you."

Sylar nods, but he lingers there, standing close to Chandra, until Chandra moves away.

__________

On Wednesday night, Chandra falls asleep sitting up on the couch. He wakes up to find Sylar sitting next to him, his long legs folded up to his chest, and his head leaning sideways on his knees to watch him. He curls his toes on the edge of the couch when he sees that Chandra is awake.

Perhaps it should be disturbing, but they have spent so much time together in the past few weeks that Chandra has come to expect this behavior.

"Good morning, Gab-- Sorry. Sylar."

Sylar glances toward the window. "It's not morning yet."

"Don't you ever sleep?"

Sylar just grins.

Chandra begins to yawn, then cringes, finding that he has a crick in his neck. Sylar immediately unfolds himself to rub the knotted muscles. "You should sleep in your bed. You don't have to stay up with me. I'm recording everything."

"I know that." He pulls Sylar's hand away from his neck and holds it it between his own two hands. "You don't know how long I have worked on this. How much I have given up. I can't simply go to bed while it's playing out in my own flat."

Sylar laughs and glances down at their hands. "I like that you call it a flat."

Chandra pats Sylar's hand. "I can tell you need sleep as well. You are being silly."

"Maybe." Sylar rakes his lower teeth over his upper lip, looking up at him through his dark eyelashes. "We could go sleep in your bed for a while."

The suggestion isn't as surprising to Chandra as it should be, but he raises his eyebrows anyway.

"J-Just sleep, I mean. Keep each other warm." He looks down at their hands again. "I know you get cold easily."

"All right," Chandra says. It is a reasonable solution given the situation, and he is too tired and too cold to question it.

Sylar smiles at him, his eyes suddenly bright. His pupils are slightly dilated.

__________

Chandra lets Sylar sleep in his bed for the next three nights. He has found that Sylar will fall asleep more quickly if he pets his hair, just like Mohinder when he was a little boy. When he begins to do so on the third night, Sylar stares at him, his eyelids not drifting closed like they usually did. He rakes his teeth across his lip, and he jerks forward in an awkward movement and kisses him.

It's not a particularly enjoyable kiss; just the brief touch of chapped lips with just a hint of wetness behind them. Afterward, Sylar's eyes are huge and dark, and they twitch as he searches Chandra's face for a response.

Chandra lets him search in silence for a few moments.

Then, "You mustn't do that."

Sylar flinches, then looks down, away from Chandra's eyes.

"Do you understand, Gabriel?"

"No," Sylar whispers.

Chandra turns away from him, onto his back. "I would like you to sleep on the couch tonight. Perhaps that is the better arrangement."

A light rain patters against the window pane. It seems loud in the quiet flat. Finally, the mattress shifts and Sylar's footsteps creak along the floorboards.

Before long, Chandra hears the sound of a glass scraping across the surface of the table before crashing into the cupboard door.

__________

When Chandra gets up the next morning, Sylar is gone. There is a note scrawled on the table.

"I'll come back. - S"

Chandra sighs, but his lips curve in a private smile.

"He is just like your namesake, Mohinder," he says to the lizard. "Even when he rebels, he reassures me that it will not last."

__________

It is late afternoon, and Sylar has not returned yet. Chandra goes downstairs to talk to the super about the rent that will be due soon. He has no money left to pay it.

"Didn't he tell you?" the super asks. When Chandra doesn't respond, he says, "That, uh, guy that's been staying with you paid the rent."

"... Ah."

The super leans forward. "Look, I'm not worried about alternative lifestyles or whatever. I mean, if I liked guys, I'd probably say he's not a bad catch, especially for a guy your age. It's just, if he's going to be staying with you, he needs to sign a joint lease."

"He is not staying with me. He has his own... apartment."

"All right, well. If that changes..."

Chandra smiles tightly and leaves.

When he returns to his flat, Sylar is there, hunched over the table. He is building a little house out of the toothpicks Chandra asked him to work with.

Something has shifted between them. Chandra can feel it, and his pulse pounds in his ears.

__________

"Sylar."

Sylar looks up at Chandra, his eyes clear, his expression serene. He has been back for hours without speaking, without taking a break. There is no sign that he needs a break anymore.

"I did not intend to hurt your feelings."

"I know that, Chandra." He stands and goes to the terrarium. He plucks a live cricket from their little plastic case and drops it next to the lizard. "I'm glad it happened. It clarified some things for me."

Chandra's heart is pounding again, but he goes to stand next to Sylar. He is standing straight without being reminded, and Chandra feels very small next to him. "I am pleased to hear that."

Sylar smiles softly as he watches the cricket climb the branch where the lizard sits, waiting, so still that the cricket doesn't know it's there. "I've never known anyone who sees me the way you do. Most people don't see me at all. You can't blame me for having a crush."

"I think that, as you become more confident, you will find that more people see you as I do, Sylar."

"I like when you call me Sylar," he says softly.

"If that is what you want to be, that is what I will call you."

Sylar laughs down at the lizard, then looks up at Chandra. The cricket's leg is hanging from the lizard's mouth.

__________

Sylar is asleep on the couch, one leg slung over the arm rest and the other bent over the side. That is when Chandra risks making a phone call.

He hasn't thought of calling the others since Sylar came back that night, able to move things with his mind. There wasn't any reason to, then.

Now, he believes Sylar needs others around him, others like him. He looks through the files and finds Brian Davis's phone number. There are indications that his ability may be similar to Sylar's. He seems like a good place to start.

The phone rings three times before someone answers. A woman's voice. "Hello?"

"Yes." Chandra speaks in a low tone, so not to disturb Sylar. "I am Dr. Chandra Suresh. I would like to speak with Mr. Brian Davis about some research I am con--"

"I-I'm sorry. Brian..." There is rustling on the phone, like a hand has been put over it for a moment. When the voice speaks again, he can hear the emotion in it. "Brian was killed a few weeks ago."

Chandra's heart drops. "Killed?"

"Please, don't call this number again." The phone clicks, and the call is disconnected.

Chandra slowly sets the phone down. It is as if his entire body has gone numb. He just sits and stares at his hands as if they aren't his own.

He desperately wishes that he could feel surprise, but all he feels is fear.

"Chandra."

Chandra looks up with a start. Sylar is leaning against the doorway, arms crossed, head slightly tilted.

"What is it, Sylar?"

Sylar's eyes are huge and dark, shadowed by his heavy brow. He moves toward Chandra. When he's close enough, he sinks down to the floor and rests his head in Chandra's lap.

Chandra's hand is still trembling with fear as he runs it over Sylar's hair. Sylar just smiles and nuzzles against his thigh.

__________

That night, Sylar crawls into Chandra's bed with him, quiet and dangerous, and he kisses him sloppily, like a teenager. Chandra allows it, knowing it isn't ethical. If he were an honest man, he would admit that he discarded ethics a long time ago.

Their lips are raw before Sylar settles in next to him. "Chandra, what are we going to do when I master my telekinesis?"

Chandra furrows his brow, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "You used to call me Professor."

"I guess I did."

"Mm." He presses his lips together, trying to erase the feeling of Sylar's mouth on his. "I will publish my study on your abilities, and I suppose we will continue from there."

"It seems like kind of a waste, doesn't it?" Sylar presses the bridge of his nose under Chandra's jaw. "I could do so much more."

Chandra doesn't answer. Far away, a siren sounds, and it makes his skin crawl.

"You should give me the list."

The siren is moving closer, and he hopes that it will stop here. He hopes they are coming for Sylar. If not that, he hopes they are coming for _him_.

"You know what we could do together. It's evolution, like you said."

The siren fades away. Chandra closes his eyes and bends his arm to pet Sylar's hair. "Go to sleep, Sylar."

Sylar takes a deep breath against his neck, and soon he is asleep.

As long as he still does as Chandra tells him, everything will be okay.

__________

Chandra stands by the window. The dense morning fog obscures his view of the city, makes it seem distant, as if the sounds it makes are simply coming from a radio that he could easily turn off.

He hasn't left the flat for days now.

Sylar sits on the couch nearby, reading Chandra's book. He's stopped practicing almost entirely. He just sits around the flat all day, waiting.

He knows that Chandra is weak. He knows that, eventually, he will give in. Chandra knows it too.

"Every time I read this," Sylar says in that old reverent tone that used to make Chandra smile, "I find something new."

Chandra doesn't answer. Sylar sighs and snaps the book shut, tossing it onto the cushion as he gets to his feet. He stands next to Chandra and squints at the window. "There's nothing to see out there."

"Yet still, I look. I must be a fool."

A familiar silence sets in between them. Then, Chandra's back is slamming into the wall before he realizes that Sylar used his ability to shove him. Sylar moves close, but he doesn't touch him.

His eyes as impenetrable as the fog. "You're giving up on me again. I can tell."

"Sylar, I'm not--"

Sylar puts his finger to Chandra's lips to quiet him. "I did it for you." He pulls away his finger and kisses Chandra briefly, his teeth sharp behind his soft lips. "I knew you would understand. It's everything you talk about. It's evolution. If it weren't for me, you'd still be making calls to people who are too afraid to talk to you, too afraid to use the abilities they've been given. You know that."

"Your understanding of evolution is flawed."

There is hurt in Sylar's eyes, and for a moment, he is the young man Chandra met a few months ago.

Sylar leans forward and whispers in his ear, "I need you."

Chandra smiles despite himself. "We are too much alike." He reaches up to touch Sylar's hair, and Sylar leans against his palm. "Both pretending we can fill the emptiness in our souls with one another."

Sylar blinks at him. His eyelashes are dark with tears.

"We will always be empty, Gabriel."

Sylar shoves Chandra against the wall again, with his hands this time, and he presses against Chandra's body with his own. Chandra can hear Sylar's watch ticking a few inches below his ear. He can feel those wet eyelashes against his neck.

"I can give up on you too," Sylar mutters in a low, empty voice.

Chandra does not believe him. Even as Sylar shoves away from him and leaves him alone in the flat, he doesn't believe it.

He doesn't, because he knows, deep down, he will never give up on Sylar either.

__________

Chandra is, once again, only a taxi driver. The city stretches out in front of his windshield like a painting. He knows if he reached out for that horizon, his hand would only hit something flat and solid.

He returns to his empty flat, ignoring the flashing red light on his answering machine. He goes straight to the second-hand DVD player and slides in a disc marked SYLAR-4/22/06-4/20/06.

On his television screen, Sylar hunches at the table, his soft hair constantly falling into his eyes. The sound is off, but he can tell that he'd said something, because Sylar looks up toward the camera and smiles. His eyes used to be so bright when he smiled.

The phone rings. Chandra ignores it.

He watches himself go to Sylar, those bright eyes following him obediently, like two well-trained dogs. He watches himself lean over him and say something to him that makes that smile even bigger. He watches himself touch Sylar's back, to remind him to sit straight.

The answering machine clicks. Chandra turns up the volume of the video, so he doesn't have to hear Sylar's voice now.

 _Professor, I have to tell you something._

 _What is it, Gabriel?_

 _Before you found me, I was thinking about killing myself._

 _Gabriel, I..._

 _No, I mean. Don't worry, I don't want that anymore. I just wanted you to know. I was so lost, and you found me. You gave me something to believe in._

 _Yes... I understand._

 _So, um. Could you call me Sylar now? I know it's weird, but..._

 _I will call you whatever you wish to be called, Sylar._

The neighbor beats on the wall, shouting about the volume. Chandra presses the power button and watches the screen turn to black.

The phone begins to ring again.

Chandra gets to his feet and goes to the terrarium. The lizard needs to be fed.


End file.
